Michael, lying between his two bitches, nuzzled at Ceri’s throat and she gave a snicker, but did not respond in the way he had expected. He turned and did the same to Lily.
No, Lily growled. Mate tired if now. Wait. Run top.
Michael gave a disapproving rumble and both girls snickered back at him.
Mate getting much bitch, Ceri said. Too much?
Lily gave a non-committal semi-bark and Michael let out a whine which was almost pleading. There was more snickering.
Coming to a decision, Michael bounced to his feet and reached out hands to help his women to theirs. Come. Top. Now!
Ceri and Lily looked at each other, and then crawled slowly up Michael’s body, their muzzles ruffling the fur on his neck as they straightened. Michael let out another whine, this time of frustration, and then there were more snickers as the two girls turned and ran for the mountain.
Westminster, London.
The desk sergeant blanched a little as three werewolves entered the lobby at Greycoat Street led by a tall, elderly woman with long, silver hair. Two of the wolves took up position on either side of the doorway while the third, obviously a female, followed the woman to the front desk.
‘C-can I help you?’ the man asked.
Alexandra smiled. ‘Not long on the job, dear? This place does seem to go through desk sergeants at an alarming rate. Would you please tell Detective Inspector Radcliffe that Alexandra has some information for him?’
‘It’s the shitty job they give people when they get promoted and sent over here,’ Kate explained as she led Alexandra and Anita through the corridors of the Greycoats’ HQ. ‘Once they get the hang of it, we tend to move them somewhere else, or they get out before they go ga-ga.’
‘They would see the worst of the supernatural world there,’ Anita commented. In the interests of decorum she had slipped into a corner and changed into a human, and into jeans and a T-shirt. In truth, with her physique, the result was not entirely decorous.
‘They do. Kind of shock therapy. How’s Ray?’
‘He’s good. We’re good. He’s learning to be quite like a wolf, and I’m learning when it’s nicer to be a human. And he can almost hold his own against me in fur now.’ Ray was a martial arts instructor who had met Anita because he taught Ceri staff combat and he wanted to learn more about how werewolves fought. There were rumours around the Met that his flat’s furniture needed replacing a lot, though whether that was from accidents while sparring or overly enthusiastic sex was not clear.
Kate opened a door and stepped through into a fairly large room with various maps and screens covering one long wall. Barry was there, as was John and a man in tactical uniform.
‘Alexandra,’ Barry said, nodding to the Alpha, ‘Anita, this is Chief Inspector Xavier. I wanted him here in case we need to send a tactical team in.’
Alexandra glanced at her Captain. ‘It looks like that’s a yes,’ Anita stated. ‘The place the Marshwallers thought might be where the drugs were coming from is outside both our territories, so we mounted a joint operation to check it out. It’s been set up to look like a paint workshop. The solvents mask the scents some, but we’re pretty sure someone’s up to something more unnatural in there.’
The Amazon walked over to a map showing the Greater London area and tapped a spot south of the river in Southwark. ‘There. He picked a good tactical position. There are only three doors and one of those is a fire exit. Your ingress is going to be difficult if they’ve got supernaturals in there.’
Xavier gave a grunt. ‘About par for the course.’
‘Do we know Chan’s in there?’ John asked.
‘No one has seen him,’ Alexandra replied. ‘We are sure there are undead at the site, however. Probably more than one.’
‘All right,’ Xavier said, ‘I’ll pull plans for the building. Would you be willing to go over them with me, Captain?’ He was looking at Anita and her expression shifted to slight surprise as she nodded. ‘Good. Lionel, we’ll need to draw incendiary rounds.’
Barry gave a nod. ‘After the incident with Trina in your pack it requires two senior officers to authorise use of non-conventional ammunition. The Army aren’t allowed them unless we’re at war or they’ve been issued by us.’
Alexandra nodded. ‘An over-reaction, perhaps, but a welcome shift in attitude.’
Xavier was at one of the computer consoles already. ‘Here we go… Anita, what’s your recommendation for ingress?’
M40, Warwickshire.
They had been driving for two hours and they had another two to go before they got back to Kennington. Ceri had started out glad that she was, mostly, over her phobia of cars and travelling, and then forgotten all about it after the first thirty minutes.
Lily, who was the only one who could drive, had insisted that Michael and Ceri sit in the back of the Range Rover they had borrowed from Carter. ‘It’s still Michael’s birthday,’ she had said, ‘and we can’t have him sitting there in the back, bored and lacking entertainment for four whole hours.’ After fifteen minutes she had demanded to know why Ceri was still dressed.
Then there had been ten minutes of diminishing embarrassment about being naked in the back of a car with tinted windows driving down public roads. But… No one could really see in, could they? And it was Michael’s birthday. And oh God his hands felt so good doing that. And…
‘Are you over me being younger than you now?’ Michael asked. She was sitting in his lap and they were letting the motion of the Rover do its work. The thought had occurred to her that people could see her through the un-tinted windscreen, but she had decided she did not care.
‘For now,’ Ceri replied.
‘For now?’
‘Yeah. In a few years I’ll be thirty and you’ll still be in your twenties, and then everyone’ll think you’re my toy boy again.’
Lily giggled. ‘At least that’s done with for a few years. Good birthday, Michael?’ She pulled the car right to go around a slower vehicle and there was a chorus of moans from behind her. She giggled again. ‘I’ll take that as a yes.’
Part Five: The Nature of Imbalance
Southwark, London, April 17th, 2013.
There were werewolves from two packs around the perimeter of the small industrial park. Both Anita and Grant had wanted to send people in with the teams breaching the building, but they had bowed to logic; no one made gas masks for werewolves and there were likely to be some very noxious fumes floating around, especially once the gunfire began.
Everyone was expecting gunfire. Kate and John were armed again, even though they had been told, in no uncertain terms, that they would not be going in until the situation was contained. John had not been best pleased, but Xavier had given him a look and said that Barry had ‘briefed him on the full situation,’ and John had nodded. Xavier was not taking prisoners unless they gave up without any fight at all.
The buildings near to the paint shop had been quietly cleared, it was still light, and they were ready to go in. Two men moved in, keeping low, and laid a string of explosive charges along the bottom of the big, garage-style door at the front of the building before backing off to cover.
‘Sound off,’ Xavier said into his field radio.
‘Alpha team, ready.’
‘Beta team, on station.’
‘Gamma team, covering rear door.’
Xavier glanced at John and then the she-wolf form of Anita, looking a little odd with an earpiece looped over one large ear. The Guard Captain nodded.
‘Breach,’ Xavier said, and then he was pulling his mask into place and running to join his men.
There was a thunderous detonation, the sound echoing off the nearby walls. The radio channels crackled with static as throat mikes caught random noise and movement. John could see the smoke rising from the dock, men pushing in through the hole, but nothing much else. His hands tightened around his automatic.
‘Clear.’ The voice declared the front area empty. That did not seem good.
‘Someone get that door open.’
There was another thud and then the bullets began flying. The staccato rattle of automatic weapons, deadened by interior walls, could be heard. John felt Anita tensing, her entire body readying for a fight if there was to be one.
‘Vampires!’
‘Stun grenade!’ That was followed by another loud bang.
‘Fucking smoke…’
‘On your right!’
‘Beta,’ Xavier’s voice, ‘room on the right. Alpha, check the corners. Anyone hurt?’
There was no immediate answer and John let out a breath he had not realised he was holding. Then…
‘What the fuck…?’
‘What is it?! Oh shi-’ And the screams began.
Kennington.
Something felt wrong as soon as Ceri walked through the gate of High Towers. The house was telling her something, but she was not sure what it was until she opened the front door and found the chaos in the hall.
There were half a dozen wounded werewolves lying around on blankets. Several more were standing, but were covered in blood. Gwyn and Alexandra were moving between them dispensing first aid and magic in equal measures.
Ceri’s fists clenched as she spotted Anita lying unattended on one of the blankets. There were deep wounds in her stomach which looked like they had been scorched in with a hot iron. Knowing Alexandra and Gwyn, and knowing Anita, it was likely that the Captain had told them to see to her people first. Taking two long steps across the floor and summoning her power as she went, Ceri reached out and poured that power into Anita. The howl that went up stilled every other noise in the room.
‘Anyone else need immediate, massive attention,’ Ceri snapped.
‘The rest should heal themselves now,’ Alexandra told her. ‘We were just about to get to Anita. She…’
‘Told you to deal with everyone else first. Yes, I’m quite well aware of my Captain’s need to get herself killed protecting her people.’ Ceri was aware that the anger she was feeling was irrational, but she had just come back from a nice break to find carnage in her front hall. ‘Now, would someone like to explain to me what the fuck’s going on?!’
~~~
Kate and John turned up about thirty minutes later, his arm in a sling. Lorna’s anger at not being told about Lo Chan battled for supremacy with worry for her husband, and lost. Ceri decided that she would heal the torn ligaments later; she wanted a quiet Lorna for the interrogation portion of the evening. Kate had a livid bruise under her right eye and Lorna was almost as solicitous about that. The combination had her sitting between them looking like she was angry for being angry.
John sat with his head bowed for a minute while Ceri watched him, and then he began to speak of his own accord.
‘It seemed to be going well enough. Xavier told us we were to stay outside until they had secured the building. That’s what they were doing. Then…’ He looked up at Ceri and she saw the pain in his eyes; he blamed himself. ‘Then all Hell broke loose.’
‘There was a lot of screaming,’ Kate said, her voice numb. ‘Something exploded. John started running in and I followed. The wolves closed in their cordon. Then something came out through the smoke.’
‘Something?’ Ceri asked.
‘It was like a cloud of darkness,’ John said. ‘I’ve never seen anything quite like it. Not that that’s saying much, but… One minute I could see, the next it was pitch black. Something grabbed my arm and swung me around. I hit a wall…’ Lorna let out a little whimper.
‘I lost sight of John,’ Kate continued the story, ‘and this cloud kept moving, fast. I wanted to shoot, but… A few of the wolves on the far side of the cloud from me ran in, and that was when the fire started. Bolts of flame, jets… I heard something and turned around, and someone hit me.’ Her hand lifted to her cheek. ‘I didn’t go down entirely, but it felt like I’d been hit with a hammer. He was tall, slim…’ She frowned. ‘There was something odd about him though I haven’t quite managed to put my finger on it yet.’
Ceri nodded and looked at Anita, sitting in front of the fire wrapped in a blanket. ‘You went into the cloud, right?’
‘Stupid mistake,’ Anita muttered. ‘As John said, it was pitch black. I couldn’t see a thing, but I could smell undead, and heat. Something hit me in the ribs almost as soon as I got in there. It had claws, but it felt like I was having my flesh burned off while it ripped at me.’
‘From the looks of the wounds you were. Those were serious burns, Anita. You should have let Gwyn deal with them. They weren’t healing.’
Anita’s eyes flashed as she looked up. ‘My Guards were hurt…’
‘I know. But you’ll be bugger all use to them dying of your injuries.’ Ceri grinned. ‘And I wanted to see you stop feeling sorry for yourself.’ She paused and then turned to her Alpha. ‘How many did we lose?’
‘We lost none,’ Alexandra replied. ‘Grant is dead, and so is one of the other Marshwaller Guards, Brandon. The police… lost a lot more.’
‘Xavier is dead,’ Kate whispered. ‘There were ten men in Beta team and none of them came out. Others injured…’
‘It’s my fault,’ John said, his voice low.
‘No, John,’ Kate said.
‘I pushed the urgency. We should have watched them, gathered information…’
‘It wasn’t your fault,’ Ceri stated flatly. ‘The information you needed you were not going to get.’
Several faces around the room frowned at her. Lily, apparently, was on the same wavelength. ‘The darkness,’ she said, as though that explained everything.
Apparently it did to Alexandra, who said, ‘Oh,’ in the soft tone of someone suddenly seeing the obvious.
‘Lo Chan, the vampire who turned Lorna and just wasted a contingent of trained tactical officers, isn’t a vampire. He’s an Ancient. He’s not like Raynor, exactly, but enough that I think it’s a certainty. You were never going to figure that out, because you were never going to actually see him.’
Lorna was frowning. ‘Ancients can manipulate darkness?’ she asked.
‘They burn in sunlight. Something to do with the demon in them. So they can wrap themselves in darkness.’
‘When Hildegard Braun came to me… Well I thought it was a trick of the light, but she kind of… vanished into the darkness.’
‘Yes,’ Alexandra said, nodding slowly, ‘she did.’
‘Hildegard came to…’ Ceri began, then stopped. ‘One thing at a time. That explains why she never let me see her. I’d have known that she was an Ancient and she told me the Ancients don’t get on well so I’d have assumed, probably rightly, that she was using us to eliminate Raynor for her. So, we have two Ancients in London.’
She waited a second for everyone to digest that and then went on. ‘Okay, so I seem to be missing a load of stuff here. Like why Lorna’s staying downstairs and how you came up with the idea that Lo Chan is the Headsman. So… catch us up, please.’ She gave the room a scowl, aside from Lily and Michael. ‘Seriously, we leave you alone for a couple of days…’
Soho.
It seemed a little odd to be celebrating Michael’s birthday with a pair of Ancients in the city and people in the morgue from trying to catch one of them, but there was an additional motive for going to the Tir inna Nok so they had decided to do it anyway. Going out to celebrate meant that Lily was not coming home alone in the early hours of the morning and that seemed like a good reason.
And since Gwyn and Mei were both there, and Twill and Ishifa had been included in the little party, Lorna had come along too rather than be left alone in the house. It was a bit of a squeeze getting everyone on table one, but a couple of small chairs and a table were brought over for the fairies to sit at, on top of the bigger table, and since table one was near the bar, and one of Lily’s tables, it was convenient.
‘Despite the homecoming,’ Gwyn said, her long fingers curled around a glass of Carter’s best single malt, ‘you had a good break, Micha
el? You did not, I hope, spend the entire time in bed.’
‘Of course not,’ Michael replied, smiling. ‘There was the hot tub, the sofa in the lounge, the rug in the lounge, several fields…’
Ceri went crimson. ‘We did not spend the entire holiday having sex!’
‘I think she does protest too much,’ Gwyn commented, a smirk on her lips.
‘I just don’t like discussing my sex life with you. I don’t necessarily like admitting I have a sex life around you.’
‘My dear, we live in the same house.’
‘So? Anyway, we walked and talked to people. Michael’s brothers are doing well. Rhys has a nearly mate. It’s not official…’
‘But it will be,’ Lily finished, appearing beside them. ‘He’s all for it. She’s worried about what people will think since she just joined the pack. Have you been discussing sex? Ceri’s all pink and she only gets that way when Gwyn’s listening.’
Ceri got redder.
~~~
‘Why is Sasha looking kind of dopy?’ Ceri asked Ophelia. The Sidhe had stopped off to wish Michael a happy birthday.
‘Oh… She invited me back to her place to thank me for the jewellery. I told her it was freely given, but she insisted that she should give me something in return since it was working for her.’
‘That doesn’t explain why she keeps watching you walk around the room. She’s looking your way now.’
‘Well… I figured if she was going to do that… and I knew she doesn’t normally… with women, I mean… I might as well make sure she had a good time… I think I may have broken her a little. She wants to go again tonight.’
Ceri shook her head, and then nodded. ‘Do it. There are some bad people out on the streets at the moment. Safer if someone takes her home.’
Ophelia grinned. ‘Well, if it’s a matter of safety…’ She strutted off toward where Sasha was standing beside the bar.
‘Since dangerous people were brought up,’ Mei said, ‘there is something we have not addressed.’ Ceri looked at her, raising an eyebrow. ‘It seems to me that the ban on angels has been enacted to allow one or the other of the Ancients free rein in the city, but I do not believe either of them could have created the enchantment.’
Thaumatology 12: Vengeance Page 14